A New Virus

Ch: 5 (old)

I was outside the fence again with Sarah, it has been two weeks since we last saw a zombie and no more have shown up. So at least I didn't feel completely uncomfortable outside of the fence.

"Over here," Sarah tells me. Sarah was currently leading me to somewhere that she has found, I have no idea where though.

"Where are we going?" I asked her, I was out of breath from all the running and you could hear it when I spoke.

"Just a little further," Sarah told me. "And you will know."

"You said that 30 minutes ago," I told her.

"But this time I mean it," Sarah told me. "I could carry you, you know."

"Unless I break something, that just seems extremely weird," I told Sarah.

"Fine!" Sarah told me. "See if you can catch up!" As she said this, she darted off with a pace that kept me running as fast as I could but my stamina was nowhere near hers. So I quickly fell behind her, at least she would stop and wait for me to catch up whenever she got too far ahead of me.

~

We stopped a little before we got to the edge of a group of buildings. From the books we had inside the fence, I knew that this had been a town or city from the old world. The buildings were covered in moss and vines, the outside walls had cracks from the years they had sat here unattended. Some buildings looked completely unsafe to enter while others looked just barely safe to enter.

"Is this a town?" I asked Sarah.

"Yes," Sarah told me. "Acworth, from the signs that had been here when I first found it. We are right on the edge of the only buildings remaining."

I looked over the town again, and little ways of I could see a sign. The sign was weathered and the words were faint but you could just barely make out the word that was printed on it, Acworth.

"You know the fenced area that we live in?" Sarah asked me.

"Yes, you mean Riverblossom?" I asked her, not knowing what she was meaning.

"Yes, anyways the stronghold had once been apart of this town," Sarah told me.

"What?" I asked her. "How do you know?"

"You do know that there are still people around that had lived in the old world before the zombies, right?" Sarah asked me.

"Yes," I told her. "What are you getting at?"

"I asked someone from the stronghold about my find, someone that had been around before the zombies ever showed up. They told me what I wanted to know." Sarah says, her arms were crossed about her chest and her fingers from her right hand were taping against her left arm as she spoke.

"Alright, but why bring me here?" I asked her.

"To explore the area," Sarah told me as if it was obvious. "I've never set foot inside the crumbling city, mostly because I thought it was too dangerous for me alone."

"Too dangerous?" I asked her, as I crossed my arms against my chest. "You have Heartfire, I don't. So it's much more dangerous for me."

"Yeah, but this way if one of us gets into trouble, the other can go back and get help," Sarah told me, she pointed back in the direction of the stronghold as she said the last part.

"You make a little since then," I told her. Well, it would make more sense if she didn't have Heartfire, I thought. "Only a little," I added.

"Well, come on," Sarah told me, she motioned to the crumbling building that had once been apart of a town.

"Wait!" I told her. "There could be zombies inside the buildings." I was now thinking rationally about where exactly we were. We were in an abandoned town, for all we knew a zombie could be trapped in any one of these buildings.

"But there hasn't been a sighting in two weeks," Sarah told me. "And we have scouts that scout out the surrounding areas."

"But what if one of the buildings has a zombie in it from when the zombies first appeared," I told her.

"That would imply that no one has checked these buildings and no one has opened them in over 20 years," Sarah told me. "So I think that that's very unlikely."

"But what if someone trapped a zombie in one of those buildings so they could get away?" I asked her.

"Fine, we'll be careful," Sarah told me.

"That's all I want," I told her as we walked towards the buildings.

~

We quickly found ourselves in the middle of what's left of this part of the city. We haven't seen a zombie yet, so it's probably all clear. The buildings look even more crumbly the closer we got to one. I ran my hand against some of the bricks on one of the buildings, the bricks crumble beneath my fingers like sand.

"Are you sure that it's safe to be out here?" I asked her as we walked down the deserted streets. There were old cars dotted along the streets. They looked a little strange compared to the trucks that we use, probably because they're colors are fading, some windows are broken, and the place where you put gas in is opened.

"Yes, it's as safe as it can be seeing as no one takes care of these buildings," Sarah tells me, a little sarcasm in her tone.

"It looks like a ghost town," I told her as I looked around. Most of the buildings had broken windows on at least every floor of the building. They all looked a bit faded due to not being taken care of.

"Most towns would look like this, if not worse," Sarah told me. "The only buildings that are taken care of are the ones inside the Strongholds and forts."

"So, which building do you want to look into?" I asked Sarah.

"Anyone, really," Sarah told me.

We wandered past a few other buildings before we got to one that looked safer than all the others. There aren't that many cracks in the walls either, in fact, I can see dried mud lining the walls. The windows are even boarded up, from the outside it seems, with planks of wood.

"Well, someone tried to make this building safer," Sarah told me.

"Yeah, and by the way, how close are we to Riverblossom?" I asked her. I just now thought to ask that, why didn't I ask that sooner?

"About a 2 hour run or a 4-hour walk or 30 minutes in a truck," Sarah tells me.

"How can a 2-hour walk take 30 minutes in a truck?" I asked Sarah, that comparison made no sense to me.

"The roads swerve around and loop, whereas you can walk straight here," Sarah tells me.

"That makes more sense," I told Sarah.

"Anyways, back to what we are doing," Sarah tells me. "Wanna check out this building?"

"Sure, why not?" I asked Sarah. "It looks safer than all the other buildings."